Geiersburg Fortress
The (Japanese: ガイエスブルク要塞) was an Imperial fortress located in the Freya Starzone. At 45 kilometres in diameter, it was of the same order of magnitude as Iserlohn, albeit smaller, and was the second most powerful Imperial fortress. The fortress had a mass of roughly 40 trillion tonnes and could maintain a fleet of up to 16,000 war ships within. Its primary armament, a massive X-ray beam cannon called the Vulture's Claw, had a wavelength of 100 ångströms and an energy output of 740 million megawatts. Like Iserlohn, Geiersburg was encased within a heavy sphere of liquid metal armour, which was thick enough to absorb explosives, and could even reflect laser attacks — making the fortress nearly impregnable. ( ) History With the loss of Iserlohn Fortress to the Free Planets Alliance in , Geiersburg Fortress was left as the most powerful fortress within the Galactic Empire. When the high nobles formed the Lippstadt League, Geiersburg Fortress became their main base of operations in the Imperial Civil War. ( ) The fortress was attacked by Reinhard von Lohengramm's forces during the civil war. A feint by Admiral Wolfgang Mittermeyer saw the fortress bombarded by long range missiles, causing little damage to the fortress itself, but provoking some of the hot-headed nobles to make a rash sortie from the fortress. In the final stages of the civil war, part of the fortress garrison revolted in reaction to the Westerland Massacre. In the final battle, rebellious troops seized control of the control room for the main gun, ensuring that it would not fire on Reinhard's approaching fleet. As a result, Reinhard's forces were able to board the fortress with ease, and the fortress, though powerfully armed and extensively provisioned, swiftly fell to Reinhard von Lohengramm's forces. ( ) In , Anton Hilmer von Schaft, Inspector General of the Science and Technology Division, proposed to turn Geiersburg into a mobile fortress by attaching warp engines and thrusters so that it could be moved to the Iserlohn Corridor to attack Iserlohn Fortress. The proposal was approved by Duke Lohengramm who appointed Karl Gustav Kempff to lead the operation against Iserlohn Fortress, with Neidhart Müller as second-in-command. The actual modifications to the fortress did not involve any new technology and was just up-scaling of existing technology. Large thruster units were installed evenly around the exterior of Geiersburg and synchronised to fire together. Testing of both the thruster units and the warp engines was successful. On 10 April , Geiersburg Fortress warped into the Iserlohn Corridor where it was detected by an Alliance patrol led by the battleship Ulysses. The Imperial force comprised the fortress itself, a docked fleet of 16,000 ships and 2 million soldiers in total. ( ) The Eighth Battle of Iserlohn saw Iserlohn Fortress and Geiersburg Fortress trade fire with their main weapons, both of which were sufficiently powerful to penetrate the external liquid metal armour layers of the fortresses. The risk of mutual destruction limited the firing of their weapons. After multiple failed attempts at taking Iserlohn, and having the Kempff Fleet take heavy losses upon the return of Yang Wen-li, Admiral Kempff attempted to ram Geiersburg into Iserlohn, hoping to destroy both fortresses and thereby achieve his objective of neutralizing Iserlohn. This plan failed when Yang focused the fire of all Alliance ships upon one of Geiersburg's thruster units, destroying it. As the movement of Geiersburg relied on the even firing of all its thrusters, the sudden loss of one thruster on one side resulted in the fortress turning away from its collision course with Iserlohn. The out of control fortress careened through the Müller Fleet, inflicting casualties, and exposed itself to a shot from Iserlohn's Thor Hammer. The shot penetrated deep into the fortress, causing loss of power to its remaining thrusters. Runaway internal explosions ultimately led to the entire fortress breaking apart. The fortress's final death throes destroyed the docked Kempff Fleet, killed Admiral Kempff, and inflicted heavy losses upon the Müller Fleet. Only 700 ships returned to Odin and total casulaties, including wounded, were 1.8 million. ( ) Design The docking area was arranged as an immense cliff face as high as Geiersberg Fortress's superstructure diameter, and the gravity was oriented accordingly. Ships docked horizontally at piers jutting out from the cliff face. Access was via a set of large armoured doors that extended through the fortress's liquid armour layer. In keeping with the social stratification in the Empire, there was a luxuriously appointed grand hall for social or ceremonial functions and the quarters for senior officers or nobles were similarly luxurious. ( ) Appendices Appearances * ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** (destroyed) Background information The name Geiersburg is likely derived from Geiersberg, the tallest mountain in the Spessart range of Bavaria, Germany. (The literal meaning is vulture's mountain.) Schattenburg Fortress was also named after a mountain in Bavaria. DVD features Sketches of Geiersberg Fortress appear in the extra features of the DVD box set. File:Geiersbergschematic.jpg|Sketch of docking area layout File:Geiersbergdocksketch.jpg|Sketch of docking area File:Geiersbergdockdoorssketch.jpg|Sketch of docking area entrance File:Geiersbergdockcontrolroomsketch.jpg|Sketch of docking area control room File:Geiersbergfortresscommandcentresketch.jpg|Sketch of fortress command centre File:Geiersberggrandhallsketch.jpg|Sketch of the grand hall File:Geiersbergofficerclubsketch.jpg|Sketch of senior officers' club File:Geiersbergenginesketch.jpg|Sketch of fitted warp engine and thruster unit Category:Fortresses